


Victim

by nestofthorns



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bullying, Minor Violence, implied suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 19:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5303696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nestofthorns/pseuds/nestofthorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows what he is—a toy, whatever they want him to be—and he doesn’t care, really. Not anymore. </p><p>Ruminations of a weak child in an unforgiving world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victim

Before he was the Loser, there was someone else. Another—a girl—a weaker, easier mark. She was frail, with a countenance like glass and palette of a ghost: grey, white grey and endless black, staring at you and the world until nothing was left. The others teased and jeered but her eyes never shed tears, never did anything but stare stonily ahead.

They called her Freak.

_Tense lines around her lips, blood on her palm, nail-marks on pale wrists; how easy it is to remember now, he muses, counting his own nail-marks. His own body is a mirror of memories. First to be reflected are the cuts. Next are the bruises._

She had hands and wrists so small they looked as if they could break with one snap. He remembered because the others liked to grab her hands most, and he had watched and cowered in the safety of the shadows of the stairs as they pushed her into the mud and dirt, fearing that the dainty wrists would break under the pressure. Wondering, if that would one day be him, rolled in dirt and less than trash, in what had to be constant agony.

She had worn a band around her wrist, once. A sturdy-looking, black _(no, grey? Ah, the colour doesn’t matter now, does it?)_ leather wrap. He’d been so relieved that her wrist would be protected, so certain she would be alright this time, and so preoccupied with concocting a plan to steal some leather for himself, that he hadn’t followed them when they took her. The next day, the band was the ‘ball’ in a game of catch and then yet another trash lost. The wrist was broken, this time.

Her wrist was never adorned again. He followed her example.

_His hand brushes against his stomach, and if he closes his eyes, he can see underneath the frayed cotton shirt hiding the splotches of bruises, purple-black and ugly. He doesn’t need to wonder, he knows she had them too, just as ugly and perhaps a bit more black than purple._

_When Ghost sits by him in the little haven they’ve managed to hide from everyone else and the silence the not-boy-not-girl brings along becomes too much to bear, too heavy with reminders of life, he lets out a sound that’s supposed to be a chuckle if only he remembers how to, and says, “Maybe I could make a fortune as a Seer. I’d predicted my life, after all.”_

_Ghost doesn’t laugh, but that’s okay because he hadn’t expected them to. He doesn’t want to either, but he lets out the not-chuckle anyway. Even if it’s about his death, humour helps, for a while. It’s working less and less now, but he’ll take reprieve where he can. For a while, he can forget._

When the matron wasn’t looking, they would pull her hair, white as snow under mud-streaked boots and always just as dirty, as if it was a rope to be played tug-of-war with and they would laugh as she struggled, bit and clawed to free herself. Later he would go and pick up the chaotic mess of white hair strewn on the floor and bury it somewhere safe, as if it would also protect the girl he was too weak ( _afraid)_ to help.

_The matron doesn’t care, he knows this now. As long as the welfare sends money, money that won’t be enough even if the matron doesn’t take it for her rings and shoes and beer, she does not care.  It is unfortunate the others also know now. The Hunting Time has lengthened._

_Which is more painful, he wonders, hair or arms? He tugs out a strand of brown hair and decides it’s the latter. When he sleeps that night, he tries not to count the countless white strands in his dream._

Her white dress was always stained, but her cheeks never were, as if she was already dried up and too empty to spare anymore tears.

_He understands now; he squeals and shrieks and whimpers but never cries—the tears stopped coming years ago when he understood that this isn’t a nightmare he’d wake up from one day._

He didn’t know her name. They called her _Freak_. That was her only name, like how _Loser_ was the only name he had. Nobody cared for any protests they had, and that is always the first lesson they teach. They are animals to be treated as pleased. It is a weak-feed-the-strong world, and he doesn’t bother defying anymore. Hope is a privilege for the strong.

Not that he hoped, not anymore. He never wishes for liberation. He knows he doesn’t deserve to be saved. _She_ had been his most potent lesson in the workings of life. It doesn’t matter that they never talked, never once communicated even from afar. It is the most painful and most important lessons that _she_ taught him:

He is trash, and he doesn’t deserve to be saved.

_He had found her crying, once. From under a broken beam, curled in its shadows; he had heard sniffles. Stifled, as if afraid someone would hear. He’d peeked._

_But he never reached out._

(He knows what he is—a toy, whatever they want him to be—and he doesn’t care, really. Not anymore. He only waits for the end because he’s too cowardly to take matters into his own hands like the girl did.)


End file.
